Teaching Methods

Meeting the needs and interests of the children is at the heart of the Meadows Nursery Schools curriculum, where personalised learning, development and care allow us to deliver the Early Years Foundation stage (EYFS) in a holistic way.

The EYFS is split into four distinct complementary themes, these are:

• Unique Child

• Positive Relationships

• Enabling Environments

• Learning and Development

These principles are integral to a child’s development and underpin the activities, routines and learning at the nursery school.

There are 6 key areas of learning that make up the EYFS and these are integral to the planning at the nursery school, these are:

1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development

2. Communication, Language and Literacy

3. Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

4. Knowledge and Understanding of the World

5. Physical Development

6. Creative Development

These 6 areas are carefully planned into the nurseries curriculum and are lead through a balance of both adult led and child initiated activities.

A Unique Child:

Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self assured Positive Relationships

Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person enabling environments.

- The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's learning and development.
Learning and Development.

Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.

1. How do we promote Personal, Social and Emotional Development? 

We promote that they are like their peers and that we all have the same personal and emotional needs.
Develop turn taking and sharing through general play or as part of an activity.
Teach and develop how to form relationships with other adults and children who may come from the same or different backgrounds and cultures.
Various topics based on the young children's experiences are often explored and presented.
Multi-cultural celebrations and customs are introduced in the hope that children will grow to understand and respect people from different lands and diverse needs.
We celebrate festivals of different faiths through stories, art and craft activities, cooking, decorations and dressing up.
We also celebrate the children's birthdays with games and singing.
We aim to help them to be independent and exercise the confidence needed in later life through them acting as helpers and helping us at our break and lunch times.

2. How do we promote Communication, Language and Literacy? 

A book corner where the children enjoy exploring books, the images and text.
Story telling and role-play where the children enjoy dressing up and developing large construction scenes of the story.
Every session includes a ‘circle time’ where children listen, discuss and talk about, the days of the week, the season, the weather , the theme and things that may have happened.
We love to sing at the nursery. We have songs for our routines, i.e. when tidying up, songs that we sing for activities and at the end of every session we have a singing session, that often involves puppets, singing cards, actions or Makaton.
We develop their vocabulary by playing language games, rhyming soup, saying riddles and rhymes and through identifying letters and sounds in theme activities.

3. How do we promote Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy?

Sorting activities through colour, shape, patterns, size and features.
Measuring volumes through water tray and sand tray activities, as well as through cooking.
Activities where children explore shape, size, weight and length.
Comparing sizes through using our hands, feet and heights
Exploring numbers through counting, adding and subtracting objects in a fun way.
Finding ways of constructing, using large and small construction equipment.
Exploring ways of travelling through garden activities.
 

4. How do we promote Knowledge and Understanding of the World?

Exploring Science and why things happen and how they happen through small experiments
Exploring natural resources through sensory play, i.e. sand, water and cornflour.
Invite members of the community in to talk to the children about their work, i.e.  a fireman, a policeman or members of the lifeboat team.
Introduce and explore ICT equipment
Celebrate different cultures and their festivals.

5. How do we promote Physical Development?

We have climbing frames, slides and balancing platforms to develop gross motor skills.
Creative, problem solving and physical skills are developed through the outside blackboards, painting boards, tricycles, scooters and sports equipment.
We include dancing as part of our curriculum and this takes many different forms, i.e. expressive, prop and exploratory.
We have soft play equipment that they can climb and explore.

6. How do we promote Creative Development?

We use story telling, drama, role-play, music and movement as ways to develop their expressive skills.
Using a range of art and craft media to develop small and large scale artwork, i.e. clay, painting, charcoal, pencils and sticking.
Use of natural resources to develop imagination through construction and art work, i.e. forming a large collage of the garden through the use of natural materials from the garden.